GI JOE: RISE OF THE BOX OFFICE DOLLARS
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Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Channing Tatum,Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, Marlon Wayans
Rating: 3/5
GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra is two things, an epic assault on your
senses with a barrage of visual artillery that rolls at a cracking
pace from the get-go.
It is also a family movie - but not in the take the whole family sense.
Stephen Sommers directed the adventure movie The Mummy and he must
have had himself a great time with the cast, because he uses both the
movie's leading man Brendan Fraser and the man who played said Mummy
here again. Fraser's role is fleeting and it's reported he was only
available/required for one day of shooting but his token appearence in
a semi-montage sequence is worthwhile.
Dennis Quaid plays the Commander of the Joes and does as good a job as
he can in these comedic circumstances, though he too is joined by a
blast from his movie past by way of a member of his Joe team from the
movie Vantage Point that started as a terrorist thriller and ended as
a comedic shambles.
Perhaps the most shockingly obvious pairing is our lead hunk Channing
Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. These two appear together in Stop
Loss the Iraq War movie where they served together in the army.
In Joe they know each other are friends and during a flashback sequence
- served together in the army. Given the release date difference in
both movies I'm sure they didn't walk off one movie into the other, so
I suppose the casting agent was giving perks for referrals?
Other actors to name check here are Sienna Miller and Marlon Wayans
Dance Flick who are both solid as The Baroness and Rip Cord
respectively.
GI Joe is a moment where you're required to check your brain at the
door and just let the tsunami of disbelief wash over you.
The effects are sometimes too overbearing and the snappy editing could
be a little too overworked in places. The Bourne movies did this all
too well and they are a difficult hurdle to conquer. Sadly the bar was
not raised here.
The thing to remember with this movie us that it's based on action
figures, and ones that wield out of this world artillery and spend
their data smashing things and blowing stuff up whilst taking down the
bad guys. That's exactly what this movie us all about.
If the closing minutes and Hollywood formula are anything to go by,
this won't be the last we see of this kick-ass bunch.
PS: rumours surfaced months ago about Sommers suffering creative
differences with the cast and being fired from the project once
filming had wrapped. These were vigorously dismissed by Sommers in
publicity interviews for Joe who said he had final cut on the project.
